Mark Rothko
Born Marcus Rothkovitch in Russia in 1903, his family emigrated to United States in 1913 and settled in Portland, Oregon. Rothko went onto to study at Yale Univerysity, however he left without a degree and settled in New York City in 1925. There he started painting and briefly studied under Max Weber at the Art Students League, but he was essentially a self-taught artist . His first solo show took place at the Portland Art Museum in 1933.
Rothko’s work grew in abstraction to the colour field paintings by the late 1940s and early 1950s for which he is best known. These Abstract Expressionist paintings were highly personal to Rothko, with large, rectangular areas of colour, usually three, that seem to melt into one another and float over the canvas. They are among the most enduring and mysterious created by an artist in modern times. Colour was Rothko's sole means of expression. Through colour, he provides a emotional and spiritual journey for the viewer. His paintings, contrary to other Abstract Expressionists, were executed with virtually gestureless brushwork, which is perhaps what makes his work so compelling.
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